


Rise/Fall

by idrilhadhafang



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Compare and Contrast, Conflicted Luke Skywalker, Gen, Heavy Angst, Minor Darkpilot, Movie: Star Wars: The Last Jedi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-14 21:55:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21022862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idrilhadhafang/pseuds/idrilhadhafang
Summary: Four words — “I’m sure you are!” — that have different meanings, in different contexts.





	Rise/Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Hot Chocolate
> 
> Disclaimer: I own nothing.

  
“Why didn’t you tell me?”  
  
Ben’s voice was lower than usual, subdued, even as he looked up at his uncle. Luke’s heart couldn’t help but ache for him, even watching him. It wasn’t one of those times where he loved Ben and was scared of him at the same time. Instead, he was just sad for Ben. He could feel it, the sort of heaviness in his chest that felt like a weight on his chest.  
  
“I’m sorry, Ben — ”  
  
“I’m sure you are!” Ben snapped, and Luke winced. “You could have said something about my grandfather being a...a monster...”  
  
Luke winced again, for different reasons. He couldn’t say that he was used to people calling Vader a monster. True, Vader had done reprehensible things. And yet they hadn’t felt him, in the night, his grief all but screaming over the bridge that their minds had formed. How Luke had felt so much in him at Endor, the mixture of rage and grief and self-loathing and so much more...  
  
They hadn’t seen Vader ultimately kill Palpatine. How he’d risked his life for perhaps the only person who could still occupy his heart. It was vain, but Luke knew that he had finally gotten through to Vader, when no one else could.  
  
“Ben, please,” he said.  
  
“What?” Ben said bitterly. “Everyone knows it.” He took a sip of his hot chocolate, the drink Luke made for them both to calm them down. Luke almost fancied that Ben looked a lot like his mother — not so much her looks (Ben’s black hair was something no one in the Skywalker family had), but just that wounded, hardened expression. Ben had worn himself out with his fit earlier, shouting at one student who bullied him that he was going to kill him (which had actually scared Luke). Now he was just wounded, angry.   
  
Luke supposed It was fair.  
  
“We debated whether it was the right thing to do,” Luke said. “When to tell you. Some things...some things are things a child could never wrap their minds around.”  
  
“You wanted to protect Vader.”  
  
“I wanted to protect _you.” _Stang, did Ben really think that little of him? “I didn’t want you living with that...that shadow over your head. With that legacy. I wanted you to have some semblance of a normal life, Ben.” He reached over to touch Ben’s hand, gently. “You have no idea how much you’re like my own son.”  
  
The way Ben looked, it was like he thought he didn’t deserve it. Luke’s heart ached. Who had told Ben that? Who had been stupid and cruel enough to put that idea in his head? It wasn’t fair that Ben even considered that idea as having any sort of credence...  
  
“You have no idea how much you’re loved, Ben,” he said.  
  
Ben looked down, bit his lip. The hot chocolate remained there, getting cold, a bitter reminder that some things couldn’t be healed that easily.  
  
***  
  
“I failed you, Ben.” Somewhere, in his calloused heart, Luke Skywalker knew it was true. It wasn’t a generic sort of failure either. Anyone could say that they failed someone; it was the classic line a Jedi said to a fallen Jedi they used to teach. No, he’d failed to save Ben. It had stuck in his craw, a bitter taste, for a decade. After saving Vader, he wasn’t used to someone being beyond saving. But he’d felt what Kylo Ren had done — felt it before the grief and pain was strong enough for him to cut himself off from the Force. What sort of grotesquely evil creature slaughtered an entire people? Killed his own father, tortured (including a pilot he’d had feelings for. Luke wasn’t oblivious), mutilated, betrayed...  
  
He had hoped that Kylo would realize that he was a monster, and yet he seemed to embrace it. To get worse. He didn’t show remorse like a thinking, breathing creature would...  
  
Luke had let him get to this point. A petulant, murderous thing that probably had to be put down like a rabid cur, and Luke could feel pity for the healthy being it had been. Ben Solo had been troubled, but he had been kind. He had been more than this thing he’d been reduced to.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Luke said.  
  
“I’m sure you are!” Kylo snapped. “The Resistance is dead, the war is over, and when I kill you, I’ll have killed the last Jedi.”  
  
“Amazing. Everything you said is wrong.” Luke said. “The Rebellion is reborn today, the war is just beginning, and I will not be the last Jedi.”  
  
He could feel it. Feel her. _Rey — can you forgive me for treating you so harshly? _  
  
“I’ll destroy her,” Kylo said. “And you. And all of it.”  
  
“Strike me down and I will always be with you,” Luke said. “Just like your father.”  
  
That seemed to be the breaking point. Kylo tried to impale him, to defeat him, but it was no use.   
  
Luke vanished, after telling Kylo that he would see him around. And maybe, he thought, even as he faded from Kylo’s view, found himself clawing his way to the top of his rock on Ach-To, he would see Kylo around. Not as Kylo, but as Ben. He didn’t know whether it would be as luminous beings, as Yoda had once put it, or while Ben was still living. When Ben became a better man. The man he could have been, had Snoke not preyed on his weaknesses, his fears and insecurities.  
  
Maybe they would reunite in the afterlife. Ben would, for a change, be at peace. Maybe Ben would come to his senses and go home. Realize that the First Order wasn’t making him happy, and go home.  
  
Maybe. Always in motion was the future.  
  
Luke knew, even as he let the Force take him, that he would be there to meet it nonetheless.


End file.
